Vinaya Prasad (or Vinaya Prakash) is a popular senior south Indian actress in both films and Television serials. She has acted in films in all four south Indian languages and has won the Karnataka State Best Actress Award twice in her acting career.

Vinaya hails from Udupi district in Karnataka. She was trained in music at very young age. She made her debut in films by performing a small role in Kannada film Madhvacharya way back in 1988. Her first lead role was in a Kannada movie Ganeshana Maduve opposite Ananth Nag in 1990. His film was was the real turning point in her acting career and she had no looking back in her career in 90s with basket full of movies mostly in Kannada and Malayalam. Some of her best Kannada movies were Nee Nakkare Halu Sakkare (1991), Mysore Jaana (1992), Aaganthuka (1993), Suryodaya (1993), Bannada Hejje (2001) etc. She bagged the state award for Aaganthuka and Bannada Hejje. Vinaya’s noted Tamil movie was Thaikulame Thaikulame (1995) in which she played the lead role opposite to Pandiarajan along with Urvashi.She also acted in Rajinikanth’s Chandramukhi (2005)Vinaya Prasad’s best Malayalam movies as lead roles were Mookilla Rajyathu (1991) as heroine, M T Vasudevan Nair’s Perumthachan (1991), Manichitrathazhu (1993), Pidakkozhi Koovunna Noottandu (1994) and the list goes on. She did a few Telugu movies like Indra (2002), Donga Dongadi (2004) and Andhrudu (2005) in which her performance was lauded.

After a decade of lead roles, Vinaya shifted to playing character roles in movies and also moved to TV serials. She immortalized the character Indu of her debut Malayalam TV serial Sthree among Malayali family audiences. Sthree was aired on Asianet from 1998-2000 over 400 episodes. Vinaya acted in the Kannada version of the serial as well. Since then she has been a part of many TV serials in both Kannada and Malayalam. To name a few Bangaara on Udaya TV, Anupama and Nithyotsava on Zee Kannada, Saradha and Devimahatmyam on Asianet, Neermathalam on Surya TV and Balamani on Mazhavil Manorama. Amidst the busy scheduled in TV serials, Vinaya is doing noted character and supportive roles in movies. In 2014 she has done five Malayalam movies including Om Shanthi Oshana, Bangalore Days and Avatharam.

In personal life, Vinaya was first married to acclaimed Kannada film director and editor V.R.K. Prasad who passed away in 1995. Vinaya is now married to Jyothiprakash, a TV serial director. She resides with her daughter Prathama Prasad in Bangalore.